Birthdays & Events February 8th - February 10th

Feb 8th

1586 Jacob Praetorius
1708 Vaclav Jan Kopriva
1741 Andre-Ernest-Modeste Gretry
1764 Joseph Leopold von Eybler
1789 Ludwig Wilhelm Maurer
1810 Norbert Burgmuller
1828 Antonio Cagnoni
1888 Matthijs Vermeulen
1891 Edgar Palm, pianist/composer
1900 Guy Douglas Hamilton Warrack
1904 Igor' Fyodorovich Belza
1906 Artur Balsam, pianist
1908 Grigor Eghiazaryan
1912 Simon Jurovsky
1914 Jules van Ackere, Flemish musicologist
1925 Alvin Brehm
1927 Zdenek Zouhar
1930 Manuel Castillo
1932 John Towner Williams, composer/conductor
1933 Elly Ameling, soprano
1940 Talib Rasul Hakim
1943 Jose de Almeida Prado

Events:

1735 First opera (ballad-opera) in North American colonies, "Flora" opens in Charleston SC
1862 Julius Benedict's opera "Lily of Killarney" premieres in London
1895 Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" premieres in St Petersburg
1946 Béla Bartók's Piano Concerto No. 3 premieres in Philadelphia


Feb 9th -Most notable for today is Alban Berg!

1607 Abraham Megerle
1741 Henri-Joseph Rigel
1744 Amos Bull
1756 Karel Blazej Kopriva
1771 Daniel Belknap
1780 Walenty Karol Kratzer
1808 Francesco Gomez da Rocha
1834 Franz Xaver Witt
1867 Edward Naylor
1875 Sidney Hugo Nicholson
1879 Carl Natanael Berg
1885 Alban Berg
1903 Georg Trexler
1906 Gwen Catley, soprano
1909 Harald Genzmer (one of my favorite extremely  neglected composers, Genzmer was born in Bremen, Germany and studied with Hindemith)
1914 Ralph Herman, orchestra leader
1924 George Guest, organist
1929 James Mulcro Drew,
1929 Willem Kersters
1930 Emil Petrovics
1931 Xavier Benguerel
1942 Carole King, singer-songwriter
1942 Charlie Morrow
1942 Milos Stedron
1943 Ryland Davies, tenor

1966 Amanda Roocroft, opera singer

Events:

1893 Giuseppe Verdi's opera "Falstaff" premieres in Milan


Feb 10th

1696 Johann Melchior Molter
1702 Jean-Pierre Guignon
1717 Pierre de La Garde
1735 Johann Christoph Kuhnau
1741 Franz Adam Veichtner
1750 Stanislao Mattei
1788 Johann Peter Pixis
1819 Richard Storrs Willis
1841 Walter Parratt
1866 Bror Beckman
1869 Vasily Pavovlich Kalafati
1879 Franz Carl Bornschein
1903 Matvey Isaakovich Blanter
1905 Vilko Ukmar
1908 Jean Coulthard
1921 Adrian Cruft
1923 Cesare Siepi, basso 

1927 Leontyne (Mary Violet) Price, soprano

1929 Jerry Goldsmith, pianist/film composer

1930 Peter Phillips

1931 Gerhard Rosenfeld

1931 Makoto Shinohara

1935 Salvator Pueyo

1935 Theodore Antoniou

1939 Barbara Kolb

1948 Conrad Cummings

1953 Carl Joseph Stone

1962 Cliff Burton, bass guitarist (Metallica) (d. 1986)

Events:

1794 Joseph Haydn's 99th Symphony premieres

1878 Peter Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4 premieres

1881 Jacques Offenbach's opera "Les Contes d'Hoffman" premieres in Paris

1882 Rimski-Korsakov's opera "Snyegurochka" premieres in St. Petersburg

1934 Howard Hanson's "Merry Mount" premieres in NYC (The "Suite from Merry Mount" is a delight, but so too is the rarely heard opera itself..if anyone is interested I shall post it)

1961 Walter Piston's Symphony No. 7 premieres

Lou Harrison - Piano Concerto - Joanna MacGregor, Piano - Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Sian Edwards - Sound Circus 2008

This is a gorgeous account of Lou Harrison's Piano Concerto (1983/1985) and it is my favorite to spin at the moment. Joanna MacGregor plays wonderfully, her piano sings and dances (and oh the swirling merriment brought about by the percussion in the "Stampede" second movement!) and the blissful result is a luminous concerto that soars ever higher.

Keyboard instruments, since the time of Bach, are tuned to what is called "equal temperament," a compromise system in which, for example, the notes G-sharp and A-flat can be played by the same piano key, even though they are harmonically unalike. Given the invitation to write a concerto for the noted jazz and classical composer Keith Jarrett (who, like Harrison, has crossed musical boundaries throughout his career), Harrison suggested a work in which the piano would be "mistuned" to an earlier, pre-compromise system.

"[This] Concerto," writes Harrison, "is an exploration of the many beauties of...this astonishing tuning." Briefly put, the black keys are tuned to produce the mathematically precise 4ths and 5ths beloved of medieval theoreticians; the white keys come off resembling the "just intonation" of the Renaissance and Baroque. The orchestra consists of strings, two harps, three trombones and a large percussion section; each group, furthermore, tunes to different facets of this system.

That's all very complicated; what results, however, is less so: a kind of harmonic richness that sounds slightly disconnected from the customary tuning of, say, a piano concerto of Brahms, without sounding truly "off." There is an urgency to the harmonic impulse here, and this is only partially offset by the ever-so-intangible "exotic" sound of the whole. It is, furthermore, astonishingly beautiful, as the composer promises.

Four movements make up the work, the first two large-scale, the last two single, simple afterthoughts. The massive first movement takes some delight in oratorical proclamations from soloist and orchestra that might indeed have come from the mature Brahms's worktable. But some of the piano writing, too, has a way of suggesting the clangor of Eastern bells; there is an open, clattery quality, not unlike a Bach invention gone amok.

In the wild and wonderful second movement quite a lot goes delightfully amok, in fact. The piano takes flight in veritable perpetual motion to a breathless, dazzling rhythmic configuration. Sharp, boisterous tone-clusters from the pianist accentuate the irregularities of this rhythm; even a brief cadenza near the end cannot stop the onrush. A slow meditation and another airy, light-hearted perpetuum mobile bring the Concerto to an end.

Many strands of thought, some of them seemingly irreconcilable, are imaginatively entwined in this work, itself a sort of synthesis of Lou Harrison's all-embracing musical outlook. "It's never enough," he says, "just to know your own musical tradition. There's so much out there in the world; there's no reason to put on blinders."

Lou Harrison Idiosyncrasies and Fun Facts:

*A lifelong lover of science and science fiction, Harrison frequently paid a small fee to have newly discovered stars named after friends.

*Harrison was fluent in several languages including American Sign Language, Mandarin and Esperanto.

*Harrison typically composed in a trailer with blocked windows.

*Harrison and Colvig constructed an environmentally friendly straw-bale house on land they purchased in the California desert community of Joshua Tree. The architectural dimensions were based on the same numerical ratios as his tuning systems.

*Harrison's short gamelan piece Lagu Sociseknum uses pitches derived from his social security number.

*Harrison co-wrote his Party Pieces at New York social gatherings with his close friends Cowell, Thomson, and Cage. As a game, one participant would compose a measure, then fold the paper so that only the last beat was visible and pass it to the next composer, who would continue the process. After a few rounds, they would play the frequently fascinating result. Bob Hughes later orchestrated these trifles, which were then recorded in 1983 by the Brooklyn Philharmonic.

Piano Concerto

1) Allegro (11:04)

2) Stampede, Allegro (8:52)

3) Largo (7:26)

4) Allegro Moderato (3:03)

I bought the lossless (flac) files for this release and I'm posting it this way (it's under 120mb) as it's

certainly worth it. If anyone wants AAC encoded m4a instead, let me know.

Enjoy everyone!

LouHarrison-PianoConcerto-Tzadik.zip

http://www57.zippyshare.com/v/UIhuPYBU/file.html

Birthdays & Events for February 7th

1707 Carl August Thielo
1710 William Boyce
1739 Joseph Pouteau
1758 Benedikt Emanuel Schack
1822 Joaquin y Garbayo Gaztambide
1823 Richard Genee
1825 Crystobal Oudrid y Segura
1847 Ernst Franck, composer/conductor
1863 Mieczyslaw Soltys
1864 Ricardo Castro Herrera
1871 Karl Wilhelm Eugen Stenhammer ("Excelsior!" ..it's fun to exclaim..and it's a lovely overture)
1875 Erkki Gustav Melartin (his symphonies (six) are must-haves!)
1875 Walter Courvoisier
1877 Feliks Nowowiejski
1878 Ossip Gabrilovich
1887 Eubie Blake, US ragtime composer/pianist 
1891 Joachim Stutschewsky
1897 Quincy Porter (still neglected American composer, his string quartets are especially fine)
1925 Marius Constant, composer/conductor
1927 John Buller
1938 Robert Frank Baksa (American composer, seriously neglected. His music for winds is lovely)
1954 Dieter Bohlen


Events:

1792 Domenic Cimarosa's opera "Il Matrimonio Segreto" premieres in Vienna
1931 American composer Deems Taylor's opera "Peter Ibbetson" premieres at Met Opera, NYC
1964 Roger Sessions's Symphony No. 5 premieres

Birthdays & Events for February 6th

A smaller list for today.

1673 Maximilian Dietrich Freisslich
1695 Andre Cheron
1705 Johann Matthias Leffloth
1793 Pietro Rovelli
1802 Charles Wheatstone, English physicist/musician/inventor (creator of the English concertina)
1807 Hans Matthison-Hansen
1834 Ema Puksec, Croatian singer (d. 1889)
1848 Luigi Mancinelli
1878 Waclaw Gieburowski
1881 Karl Weigl
1900 Roy Smeck, guitarist/banjoist (take a look/listen on youtube)
1904 Claudio Arrau, pianist
1909 Israel Citkowitz
1917 Arthur Gold, pianist
1917 Liberato Firmino Sifonia
1923 Maurice Le Roux
1938 Ellsworth Milburn
1941 Stephen Albert
1945 Bob (Robert Nesta) Marley, reggae musician/legend!/singer-songwriter 
1962 Axl Rose, (William Bailey) vocalist, Guns & Roses
1968 Akira Yamaoka

Events:

1851 Robert Schumann's 3rd Symphony "Rhenish" premieres in Dusseldorf
1854 Robert Schumann is saved from suicide attempt into the Rhine

Ladder of Escape 10: Contemporary Music for Harpsichord - Roderick de Man - Hope Lee - Alexander Voormolen - Louis Andriessen - Giel Vleggar - Geoffrey King - Joe Cutler - JacobTV - Various Artists - Annelie de Man, Harpsichord - Attacca 2008

Let's have a little musical bipolarity. Elegant music by Couperin and Royer followed by this disc of modern works for harpsichord and various instruments. 

Voormolen's "Suite de Clavecin" is the most accessible work here, and my other favorite is Louis Andriessen's "Dubblespoor" for vibraphone, glockenspiel, celesta, vibraphone and harpsichord, also quite approachable. Then, we have a piece such as JacobTV's "Doggie Steps" for violin, cello, harpsichord and tape - the tape portion includes barking dogs, a few cats (which I like, it recalls the music of P. Bimmstein) and a female voice (I assume the harpsichordist) speaking about "taking doggy steps". "even overweight dogs... now you can give him a leg up with doggy steps". This piece seems to be an imagined commercial, with it's chopped up vocals, the speaker sounding as if she has inhaled too much laughing gas. Or perhaps she's very high and very excited about the product. This piece is not for everyone, that is for sure. As an amusement I quite like it, it is humorous and the actual music that rides along with the vocals is fun, actually it's very good I think. It would be nice to hear a version of the piece without the spoken word.

I have included booklet scans.

Enjoy!

Ladder_Of_Escape-Modern_Harpsichord-Tzadik.zip

http://www15.zippyshare.com/v/gS81Poqv/file.html

Vertigo: Harpsichord Music of 18th Century France: Joseph-Nicolas-Pancrace Royer, Pieces de Clavecin Francois Couperin, Septiême Ordre - Troisiême Ordre Mark Kroll, Harpsichord - Newport Classics 1988

This is one of my favorite earlier discs of 18th century harpsichord music. Mark Kroll's playing is nothing short of outstanding here, which is not much of a surprise. He is one of the greatest harpsichordists of the 20th century. When I first heard J-N-P Royer's harpsichord music I went wild; it's just electric, highly sophisticated and mind-bogglingly virtuosic. Couperin ("le Grande") needs little introduction. His elegant and evocative keyboard works are shimmering diamonds all, among the finest that the repertoire has to offer.

Joseph-Nicolas-Pancrace Royer (1705-1755) was born in Turin, however, he moved to Paris in 1725 and soon became responsible for the musical education of King Louis XV's children. Royer is particularly known for his extravagant and virtuosic harpsichord compositions, as displayed here in the Pieces de Clavecin (The first piece is "La Vertigo", hence the album title. It's chugging motoric drive is exciting and one can almost imagine the melting of the keys whilst it's being attempted!)

Mark Kroll, 1980s

I hope everyone enjoys this divine collection

Vertigo-18th_Century_Fr_Harpsichord_Music-Tzadik.zip

http://www77.zippyshare.com/v/sxdfTmo4/file.html

Poland Abroad Volume 3 - Joachim Mendelson, String Quartet No. 1 - Roman Padlewski, String Quartet No. 2 Simon Laks, String Quartet No. 5 - Silesian String Quartet - EDA Records 2010

Volume 3 of EDA Records' "Poland Abroad" series offers three string quartets by unknown Polish composers. Of the three composers here, only Simon Laks survived the terrors of WW II when he was liberated from Auschwitz.

Eda records launched the "Poland Abroad" series in 2004 in cooperation with Deutschlandradio Kultur following a festival that the Konzerthaus Berlin dedicated to Poland as Germany's neighbor on the occasion of the eastern expansion of the European Union. This large-scale presentation put the spotlight on composers who have largely gone unnoticed on the international music scene and were persecuted or driven into exile due to the political situation (during the partition of Poland, the Nazi occupation, and the Communist yoke that followed). Some of them survived the war and the Shoah under dramatic circumstances. 

One such figure the festival highlighted was Auschwitz survivor Szymon (Simon) Laks, whose oeuvre runs through the "Poland Abroad" series like a golden thread. The series features Laks's compositions of every genre: opera, ballet, symphony, concerto, and chamber music. The goal is to highlight the outstanding quality of this repertoire in reference recordings and to encourage listeners to take an interest in two central aspects of cultural history (and not only that of the 20th century): transculturality and transnationality. All of the composers presented here stepped outside of their national context and demonstrated a style that was as individual as it was universal in their engagement with the various movements of the European avant-garde of their time.

On this volume of the series, the Silesian String Quartet (Kwartet Śląski), an ensemble that has made a name for itself far beyond the borders of Poland thanks to its countless world premieres and support for 20th century repertoire – presents first recordings of string quartets by Joachim Mendelson, Romand Padlewski, and Simon Laks. 

Pianist, composer and pedagogue Joachim Mendelson (1897-1943) was murdered in the ghetto of Warsaw in 1943 and his entire body of works, with the exception of five pieces printed by Max Eschig in the 1930s – perished along with him. After sojourns in Berlin and Paris in the late 1930s, the composer returned to his homeland to pursue a professorship at the Warsaw Conservatory and he became active in the Warsaw "Jewish Music Society." His stylistic development rose out of the tension between Polish tradition, the Second Viennese School, and French neoclassicism.  

Born in 1915, Roman Padlewski was hailed as the great hope of the Polish music scene in the generation of Lutosławski and Panufnik. An active member of the Polish resistance, he fought in a special unit and was shot during the Warsaw Uprising, not having even reached the age of 30.

Simon Laks composed his String Quartet No. 5 in 1962, when, after a long composition break following his liberation from Auschwitz and various German concentration camps, he dedicated himself again fully to composition.

Tracks:

Joachim Mendelson: String Quartet no. 1 (1925)

1) Moderato con spirito (5:41)
2) Largo (6:39)
3) Allegro con  brio (3:54)
       
Roman Padlewski: String Quartet no. 2 (1940/42)

4) Preludium in modo d'una toccata (7:58)
5) Introduzione e  Fuga (19:33)
       
Simon Laks: String Quartet no. 5 (1963)
  
6) Allegro moderato (7:09)
7) Adagio molto (5:19)
8) Scherzo, quasi presto (3:05)
9) Allegro giocoso (5:12)

Enjoy everyone

Poland_Abroad_Vol.3_SilesianQt-Tzadik.zip

http://www113.zippyshare.com/v/SmhmY5x4/file.html